Posted By Martin H http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/...s/north_east/8276505.stm I'd be very interested to hear everyone else's views on this, as I'm struggling to see how the Fire Service can justify this one.

Posted By Phil Rose Crim - I agree, there is no way that I could come to any reasonable conclusion based on the very limited information that I have here and most certainly would not want to pass judgement, or justify or otherwise.

Posted By David Gault Just a bit of a rant really - regardless of who did what the team as a whole obviously did a good job of saving lives on this occasion. What a pity they don't get paid like our bankers. If they had the same bonus scheme they would probably have left both of them in the water, claimed they had saved us on rope and manpower or maybe sold the problem to another emergncy service and then taken a million quid for it. Rant over. Well done paramedics and fire service, vastly underrated unfortunately.

Posted By Messy Shaw Whilst I know nothing about, and will not comment specifically about this case, it does seem to highlight a significant shift in the way the fire service (and perhaps other 999 services) work. When I joined the fire service about 33 years ago, we had 'officers' in charge. They used operational procedures as guidance and made decisions based on those procedures backed up with their experiences gained over years in the job. If they said jump - we would without question. We would get that opportunity later during a debrief back at the station, but never during an emergency call Now the fire service have 'managers' on the fire ground. Many have joined via rapid promotion schemes and can be in charge of a station within 5 to 6 years. Even senior managers are now being recruited directly from industry with no fire service experience. The 21st century managers learn all about policy, mission statements and how to apply operations procedures - but few have any useful experience that used to be gained whilst coming up through the ranks. Many 'managers' will tend to go for the easy option when faced with perhaps a decision involving risk critical area. After all, if they make a mistake, it might slow down their race for promotion. I have seen some terrible indecision which have led to needless & complete property burn outs at fires which may have been controlled if a brave, more aggressive (old fashioned) tactical stance had been taken by the manager. Add to that procedures now are seen as 'law' rather than flexible guidance and the modern system of dynamic risk assessments allow individual crew members to refuse an order on the incident ground if they cite H&S as their reason. You would think that with the new managers taking the easier/safer tactical decisions is would be much safer for fire crews. Well a rise in the deaths of firefighters at fires seems to suggest otherwise. Many of the frontline crews at the coal face are very frustrated by these changes. But get ready for more indecision by operational managers as more and more inexperienced personnel are placed in charge. Just to make it clear, I am not referring to the news item which originated this thread, just giving some background in to why certain operational decisions seem to be made nowadays